Palm’s first Android phone may have a 3.3-inch display & 800 mAh battery

Those of you who are phone enthusiasts might remember Palm being a thing before the advent of Android as the most used mobile OS on the planet. Palm devices were pretty ahead of their time. They ran WebOS, which was a very capable operating system for smartphones: the UI/UX, designed and developed by then-rising Chilean designer Matias Duarte, was a joy to use and look at, and it even had gesture navigation before it was cool. The actual phones were considered masterpieces by customers and reviewers alike, and they were once considered by many “the iPhone killer.” Unfortunately, it failed to go mainstream, and Palm has not released a smartphone since 2011. That’s set to change very soon, however.

We previously reported that the Palm brand was making a comeback to the smartphone market this year. But this time, it would have Android as its operating system, TCL behind the manufacturing process, and Verizon as its retailer. Thanks to Android Police, we may have gotten a glimpse of how this new Palm smartphone—their first one in over 7 years—will look. A lot of things have changed since 2011, but the newest Palm device, which is reportedly codenamed “Pepito,” is retaining the same form factor as the original ones. After all, we’re dealing with a 3.3-inch 720p screen here—a screen this tiny was considered normal in 2007-2010, but given that we’re near the end of 2018 and 5.5-inch+ screens are the norm now, it’s interesting to see a device this small potentially being sold in the US market.

The alleged Palm “Pepito” smartphone. Credits: Android Police

On the internal side, it’s a rather decent entry-level smartphone: we’re getting a Snapdragon 435 processor with 3 GB of RAM and 32 GB of storage, as well as Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box. We’re not sure whether it’s running Android Go or not, but it’s already carrying way better internals than most Android Go phones, so it could very well be launching with a full Android experience. The potential dealbreaker? The phone falls flat on the battery department: with an 800 mAh battery, even smaller than the one in the 9-year-old Palm Pre, we’re not sure how buyers will manage to squeeze remotely decent battery life out of this device.

The 800 mAh battery of the new Palm smartphone. Credits: Android Police

Specs on paper and real-life performance are different things, sure, and the 3.3-inch panel shouldn’t sip a lot of power. But taking into account the Snapdragon 435 28nm processor, the storage+RAM combination and the fact that this is probably running full-on Android Oreo, I personally think Palm will have to do some black magic to get decent battery life with this phone if the retail version is shipping with a battery this small. It doesn’t have a headphone jack, and given its small form factor, we’d say this device is probably meant for older people being first exposed to a modern smartphone.

This certainly looks like an interesting device, however, and while there is no estimated announcement date to be seen yet, we’ll keep you informed on it.